Judee Sill - Unreleased
Concert Recordings

Greetings, Judee Sill fan!

This document will tell you a
little bit about the MP3 files that are available in this directory for you. Those who are looking for the two commercially released Judee Sill albums will
be pleased to hear that, for the present time at least, they are available from
Rhino in a two-disk set called "Abracadabra," available at the moment only in
the UK. However, you can pick it up for a reasonable price from
Amazon.uk. (I think it's also
available from Amazon's US site, but at a slightly higher price.)
Those are certainly the best place to start an exploration of her music.
Another album is now available which consists of rough demos she recorded a few
years later for an album she never got to make. The copyright holders for
that release have requested the removal of those files from this site, which is
why you can no longer find them here. At the time I posted them, they were
long-forgotten artifacts from a long-forgotten career, and no one much knew or
cared about them. Perhaps due to the existence of this site, they've been
given a chance at a wider audience, and for my part in that, I have nothing but
pride.

However, for at least the time
being, I can still offer you these wonderful radio performances:

Thanks to Klaas de Jong, we now
(4/4/05) have a very nice complete
stereo copy of the transcription disk of the almost half-hour concert she gave at the BBC. This was
recorded on March 23rd, 1972, at the Paris Theater in London, and originally
broadcast on April 1st, 1972. (Thanks also to Brian Gari for his previous
assistance.) Here are
the files:

MISCELLANEOUS OTHER BBC
APPEARANCES, mostly thanks to Allan Allcott. The audio quality of these ranges from poor to very good.

"IN CONCERT," BBC-TV April
1972. Obviously, if anyone has actual videotape of this show (or better
quality audio), I'd love to hear about it! This was recorded from a TV
speaker using a microphone, and so the quality isn't terrific, but I fiddled
with the EQ and it's not as bad as you'd expect.

Hi Bob---I've been going through my
ancient reel-to-reel tapes and my eyes bugged out when I saw this one song
listed on a tape box. This was originally recorded on one of those old
handheld portable cassette decks, the kind that sold for around $29.95 with
a tiny little mic that was probably worth about a dollar, so the sound isn't
spectacular but it ain't too horrible either. Apparently I transferred it to
reel-to-reel tape soon after the concert.

I hope you all enjoy these with my compliments. I've gotten
quite a bit of email asking me my involvement with Judee Sill and her music, and here's
the story. Back in 1991, I had the idea of putting together a one-hour
radio documentary about her for NPR, which I eventually abandoned.
Many people have asked me why I abandoned it, and here's the short answer:

The more investigation I did, the more I
realized that the best memorial possible to Judee Sill is her songs. It's a life
that's frustrating to learn about in many ways, characterized by many strokes of
just plain stupid bad luck, with some foolish decisions and carelessness thrown
in for good measure. So, I think it's probably better left undone. She wrote
some amazing songs, and let's enjoy them and leave it at that.

If anyone out there has any other rare recordings of Judee
Sill (or cleaner copies of these), I'd love to hear them and add them to this repository. Please email
me at the address below.

Another persistent question is regarding
"Tulips From Amsterdam," which is listed as a third album for Judee
Sill in many databases and books. There is no primary evidence that such
an album ever existed. When I was doing my research, not only was I
repeatedly told by those who knew and worked with her that they'd never heard of
a third album by any name, but that if such an album did exist, they'd have
known about it. I always believed that this bit of misinformation started
with the All-Music Guide, but have recently discovered that it predates their
existence, and appeared in a book called "New Rock Record" by Terry
Hounsome, published in 1981, and is still listed in a database he continues to
compile and sell. I have contacted Mr. Hounsome, and here is his response:

"I
have had the record reported to me by a user so i assume that they are correct.It is difficult.
I have been told several
times that records do not exist and in some cases i have them in my collection.I am just not too sure
about this one. I have taken the record out of the database ready for the next version or update.
I can not see who sent it without going through hundreds of files and letter so maybe it is better to forget it."

Obviously, in the unlikely
event that anyone has any evidence that there ever really was such an album, I'd
love to hear about it. Until then, I'll continue to maintain that it's
either a clerical error or a prank.

On a completely unrelated bit
of self-promotion, if you'd like to download or listen to my radio shows, check
them out here. I
hope you like them!